VIRAL 'TARGET MOM' HEADS BACK TO STORE FOR POST-BABY SHOOT

The Internet's realest pregnant lady is back, and her baby's as cute as the photos that made her famous.

Author:
Abby Llorico

Published:
7:25 AM CDT September 13, 2017

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After an Arnold mom went viral this summer for her maternity photo shoot staged at the local Target store, she’s back, recreating some of her favorite images with her newborn son.

In case you missed it: Heather Pippin, owner of Inspired by a True Story photography, reached out to her pregnant friend and fellow photographer Page Miller when she had the idea. Along with her 3-year-old daughter Avery, Miller wandered up and down the aisles of her favorite store while Pippin captured the moments they shared. None of it was posed.

“As a photographer if you try to plan things too much it kind of feels forced, so us just coming in and having fun made it feel more natural,” said Pippin.

“Avery and I just walked around and did what we would need when we were walking around the store,” said Miller. “If I need her to go I’m like, ‘I’ll race you there,’ so there’s some pictures where I’m like running because that’s exactly how I get to where I need to be. I make it into a game with her,” she added. “That’s life with a 3-year-old.”

At the end of August, Miller gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Malin. In the follow-up shoot, she dressed him in the same Superman onesie she posed with in the originals; these are a symbol of her late son Clarke, who died from SIDS.

“We try to integrate him into everything we do,” she said, adding that the symbolism wasn’t meant to be sad. Instead, she says they represent a kind of normalcy for her and her family after losing Clarke. To her, they fit in perfectly with the other more fun-loving shots of “normal life” captured in the shoot.

“I think that’s kind of for other moms who have lost a child or lost someone close to them, you kind of can relate that it does, you can smile again and you can have fun with my 3-year-old still. Like it’s not sad days all the time,” she said.

Pippin had tried other quirky shoots in the past with hopes of going viral. She says the relatability is why this one had everyone from Huffington Post to Parents Magazine to Today calling her.

“If it wasn’t relatable, I don’t think it would have been half as big as it is,” she said. “But it was relatable and that’s what we ran with, and now look at it.”